Tad

thx Tad.

Think they are refering to different levels of consciousness. But again I stress, the basic elements of sender and receiver are defined.
Extending reflecting the term communication within this perspective, it gets really interesting, because aspects of selforganization within oneself are touched. But this brings you straight into cybernetics and I really dont want to bomb the topic of your entry.

My students often feel that you can receive your own messages and thus they want to argue that you can satisfy the send-receiver requirements of communication when talking with yourself. Do you buy it?

All definitions of term ´communication` imply at least the sender and the recipient.
There has been many a variations and forthdeveloppment from this very simple and linear model, but its the conditition for both verbal and nonverbal communication,
that you are not alone.
Being alone, it is ´reflection` you d call an inner dialogue, whether it is written down, spoken out or remains unarticulated.

I d be curious on what your students respond to your question.

On ´deadness`of texts`–this is a very subjective perception of mine. I did not attend to make a general statement on the nature of texts, just described my personal perception of writing & audience.

“For whom do you write your blog? Or, what audience is in mind when you type a post?”

This depends very much on the specific post I write. Sometimes I write entries addressing my teachers whom I expect to have a look in my blog at least sometime.
Sometime I address a person who has left a comment. Sometimes I indirectly address authors of other blogs. Sometime I address the readers of ethnolog, where I started posting and entered blogosphere before running my own blog. I wonder how much will change when reading my blog`s referers.
Think you never have the whole audience in mind, but address parts of it in parts of your writing.
Nice question. First, I started my blog in order to get an idea on what academic blogosphere is about by ethnographic method Thick Participation.
Second, I write my blog for those whom I have read to create at least some equality concerning ´state of nakedness`. (Know this phenomenon when you read someone`s dissertation, at the end of the book the author is almost “naked”? Of course this depends very much on the way the book is written) So this is about audience again, but from the audience`s perspective.
Third, I write my blog for everyone potentially willing to get into critical dialogue on the knowledge that is produced in there (and elsewhere), for classes or colloquiums at university simply do not offer this chance largely enough. Fourth, I write it for myself to get parts of my perception articulated and objectified.
The audience in general hereby is a powerful motivation.
A text nobody reads is a dead text.